


The Song of My People

by Low_Key_Loki



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, CCHE, Humorous Fluff, M/M, Mack & Fitz BroTP, Trolling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-07 01:36:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5438657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Low_Key_Loki/pseuds/Low_Key_Loki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark is absolutely certain Phil Coulson and Clint Barton are dating, but everyone that would know them best says they aren't. He is determined to prove it, but how?</p><p>Part of the Clint/Coulson Holiday Exchange 2015</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Song of My People

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kinthinia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kinthinia/gifts).



> For Kinthinia who asked for pretend dating and/or undercover married. Paired with the prompt: "Tony is the ultimate shipper and prankster. He tries to set the Avengers up with a specifically targeted SHIELD agent. Bonus if each plan fails and ends up with Phil getting kissed."
> 
> This is what my demented little mind came up with. I hope you enjoy it!

No matter what Pepper Potts would have people believe—and really, after so many years, not even she believed it anymore--, Tony Stark paid attention. He just didn’t let anyone _know_ he was paying attention. If one pays attention, one is forced to pretend to care about everyone instead of just those that were important. That was too much like being an adult.

 

He kept a watchful eye on his friends, however, not that he would ever admit it. Tony noticed a great many things, like that Bruce was so much more relaxed around super people— _we don’t break as easy as Harlem_ —or that Steve’s new friend Sam made eyes at Maria Hill when he thought no one was looking. With that, he just wished him luck and reached for the brain bleach.

 

It was his good friend and fellow Prank War of the Century survivor Clint Barton and the erstwhile SHIELD agent, now SHIELD Director, Phil Coulson that were the most interesting to watch though. Both kept a carefully measured distance from the other, not out of animosity, though many feelings remained hurt. Natasha had rolled her eyes more than once and sighed something in Russian to Steve’s boyfriend, Barnes, who let out a snort and eyed Steve with an exaggeratedly pained face.

 

No one believed him that Barton and Coulson were dating. They either thought he was crazy or people in the know—Natasha and Melinda May—flat out told him that they knew for a fact that the two were not dating, nor had they been since well before the whole beautiful mess had kicked off for Tony in Afghanistan.

 

He was determined to get his answer one way or another, even if he had to be a bit of a troll to get it. Tony told no one his plan until one day he approached Phil and patted him on the shoulder gently, “Faking your death must have pissed your cellist off something awful, huh?”

 

Phil gave him a bland smile after a second and replied, sighing, “I suppose so, Mr. Stark. I haven’t exactly had a lot of time to date since taking over all of the duties of the SHIELD director.”

 

“Then you’re in luck, buddy,” Tony said with a big grin, “Be ready at 8. You have a date. Time to keep love alive.”

 

**I.**

 

Phil questioned his sanity one more time as he went up to Tony’s penthouse and left the elevator only to see, “Natasha?”

 

Natasha stood by the bank of elevators dressed for dinner and snagged his arm, not letting him even stop, “Don’t talk, just move. I’m sure that little rat is watching every word in his workshop.”

 

Phil nodded and they moved silently through the building until they were inside his Stark-proof SUV—thank you, Daisy. He didn’t move, only looking at her to explain herself with a raised eyebrow.

 

For her part, Natasha wasn’t even frazzled, but buckled her seat belt. “Relax Phil, you’re the one who was missing memories, not me. Stark came to me and said he wanted to make sure you had a good first-date-since-death with someone you know. I didn’t tell him anything.”

 

As he started to turn on the ignition, his lips quirked in an amused little smirk. “Let me guess, he’s paying?”

 

Her only response was to hold up Stark’s black credit card.

 

* * *

 

Normally the look of panic on Phil Coulson’s face would have been enough victory for him, even if he were wrong—which he was not. Yet when Coulson pulled back in the parking garage to drop Natasha off after dinner, she gave him a kiss on the cheek and no one said anything to him.

 

Clint had glared at him every time he thought he wasn’t looking and that was proof, right? Well, if it wasn’t Clint, he must have upset someone he decided after he peeled yet another superglued piece of X rated glitter off the Iron Man suit and made a face at his decidedly decaf coffee.

 

**II.**

 

Maybe his mistake was hitting too close to the target. _That’s what she said_ , Darcy Lewis had helpfully offered up when he explained his predicament to her. He might have made fun of liberal arts majors, but damn the girl could argue and negotiate to get her way.

 

“Why are you making this so hard, Lewis? He’s not hideous and I saw the way you hugged him, then decked him when he became Night of the Living Agent,” groaned Tony. He was too busy introducing his forehead to his lab table to see the amusement on her face.

 

“First of all,” she said as she ticked things off on her fingers, “he’s not my type. Secondly, he’s old enough to be my father. I have a feeling that’s a bigger hang up for him than it is for me. Shut up!”

 

Tony shut his mouth on his retort and held up his hands in surrender and let her continue.

 

“Finally, you just described how almost everyone in that man’s life reacted. Why does this matter to you?”

 

“I think he and Barton are secretly dating,” he said as if it were the simplest thing in the world. It was, of course.

 

Oh, the kid must have taken lessons from Agent on Bored Face 101. “No, Tony. I’ve known them for years. They are most certainly not dating. Fine though, I’ll go to lunch with him, but you’re paying.”

 

* * *

 

Yeah, so, last week had been pretty bad. This week someone had set Tony’s computer to paint a giant bullseye on his suit’s ass and had replaced almost half of Barton’s arrowheads with magnetic ones. Barton wouldn’t mess with his own equipment, right? Maybe this was the work of Coulson.

 

**III.**

 

Okay, no Avengers and no friends of Barton. That didn’t leave him completely out of people to try though and he grinned as he looked over at the big hulking, Mack. He could do this. Mack was his people. They both spoke machine. “Please.”

 

Mack’s eyes grew wide and he took a step back like he expected an alien to pop out of Tony’s chest. “As unnerving as the sudden… manners are, I think I’m going to have to say no. I work with Coulson, closely,” he said as if it were very simple. It really wasn’t and Tony was annoyed that Mack didn’t see that.

 

“I’ll level with you. Coulson and Barton are dating and I want to prove it,” Tony said desperately.

 

Mack stared at him as if he were an interesting specimen in dense. “No, they aren’t dating, Stark.”

 

“Then it shouldn’t hurt to help prove me wrong.”

 

Mack sighed and pointed at something Fitz had been messing around with. “You take that, give detailed, _polite_ notes as you would to an intellectual equal, and I’ll go out to somewhere with him. Oh, and you’re paying.”

 

“Done.”

 

* * *

 

Apparently, done was not done. He woke up with _Tony Stark is an Ass_ etched into his hair and only one eyebrow. It was a look, to say the least. The worst part? He could not, for the life of him, tell who the handwriting belonged to. Oh, he was going to prove they were dating now if his life depended on it!

 

**IV.**

 

Now Coulson’s little ragtag group was out but he allowed friends of Avengers—just as long as they didn’t start out as Barton’s friend. Luckily for him, he knew just the ex-military man for the job, and he wasn’t over a little blackmail to do it.

 

Sam Wilson looked at him suspiciously when he offered to fix his Falcon wings for him. After all, he had only turned him down 3 times. “What’s the catch?”

 

“Who says there’s a catch? Maybe I just feel like being nice. Maybe you should have asked a fourth time,” he said before mumbling, “or maybe I want you to help me prove Phil Coulson and Barton are dating.”

 

Sam started to laugh, thinking he was joking, but slowly stopped as it dawned on him that Tony wasn’t joking. “Look man, I know I haven’t said anything, but I’m kind of working my way up to asking Maria out to dinner with me. I think dating her ex-coworker and now sometimes boss might be pushing it a little.”

 

Well it wasn’t a flat out no. He could work with this and Sam had just given him leverage. “I’ll fix the wings, pay for the date, put in a good word with Hill and pay for that date as well.”

 

Sam’s eyebrows flew up but he slowly smiled and said, “For what it’s worth, from what I hear, they aren’t dating but done.”

 

* * *

 

Ugh, give him victory or give him, well, turpentine maybe. Tony was surer than ever that they were dating after this recent round of payback and with the way Barton was glaring a hole in his head even when he _was looking_ , the couple was close to cracking. However, dyeing his skin in his sleep—was nothing _sacred?_ —to look like he was wearing the Captain Spangles outfit was low. He grinned evilly as he stepped into the shower for the 10th time. It was evil, but it gave him a hell of an idea.

 

**V.**

 

“Cap, you and I need to talk,” Tony started slowly. This was going to be the biggest challenge yet, but if it didn’t break Phil Coulson, he didn’t know what would. “I know you’re aware of Coulson’s fanboy status and I think he’s lonely. You like him, right? Wouldn’t it be a nice deed for the day to make him smile?”

 

Steve looked up from his sketchbook and sighed. “I know what you’re doing and you know that I won’t be a party to this.”

 

“Steve, Barton and Coulson are lying to everyone. Don’t you hate liars? Doesn’t that just burn your apple pie and make your pet bald eagle cry?”

 

“Clint and Phil are not dating,” said Steve, looking back down at his sketch of Bucky, “and I don’t like apple pie.”

 

Tony blew out his cheeks in frustration. “I’m not asking you to marry the guy. It’s not like you’d be cheating on The Terminator. Just take him to the moving pictures.”

 

“Be sarcastic,” drawled Steve, “that makes me want to help you harass our friends to prove yourself right when you’re wrong. It’s not about Buck.” He looked up and smiled behind Tony. “Hi Buck.”

 

Tony jumped a mile and spun around to nothing, certainly no Bucky Barnes. He could hear Steve chuckling behind him. “You, Rogers, are such an ass. Do it and not only will I consider leaving them alone, but I’ll look at C3PO’s arm and see if I can’t do something to make him look more like a real boy if that’s what he wants.”

 

“Done.”

 

* * *

 

Sonuvabitch. Yeah, it wasn’t connected to Coulson and Barton this time and he had no doubt who it was. Stabbed through Tony’s pillow with a huge knife was a note that read in neat handwriting:

_“Hey asshole,_

_Leave Steve the fuck out of your machinations. He’s not your toy. He’s mine and I don’t share well with others._

_Barton and Coulson aren’t dating so keep your damn nose to yourself._

-       _James Barnes”_

Well okay, then.

 

**+1**

 

Despite what Pepper Potts said, Tony Stark did keep his word. When he told Steve he would leave them alone, he meant it. There weren’t even any caveats, but he sure as hell was going to make sure that Coulson knew the score since on the off chance he was wrong, he knew at least one of his so-called friends cared about him dating.

 

He stalked him through the night at his New Year’s party, finding him talking to the undead Nick Fury. Patting Coulson on the shoulder he said, “Agent, just the man I wanted to see. Listen, about your date tonight—“

 

“I brought my own tonight, Mr. Stark,” Coulson stated calmly and smiled a little, “but thank you for your, uh, help on that score.”

 

Tony wasn’t sure what to say. This didn’t happen to him. He had a sixth sense for these sorts of things and if that man wasn’t dating Barton, then who? “You did?”

 

“Yeah, his husband,” said a voice behind Tony. Turning, he saw none other than Clint Barton. He could only stare at the others in shocked silence, his mouth working to create words, but his brain disobeying. “Everyone told you we weren’t dating, and we’re not. We haven’t been for going on nine years.” 

 

“Damn it Stark. You just had to go speechless,” growled Fury as he dug out his wallet and handed $50 to Coulson. “We’ve had that bet going since we met you and neither of us could ever get you to shut up. _Now_ is when you choose.”

 

“But—you. How—“

 

Clint held out his hand to Phil and drew him into a soft kiss, taking the money at the same time and handing it back to Fury. With a cocky smile, he said “Keep it. We broke Stark. That’s all the payment we need on that bet. As for you, Stark? Next time, the arrows won’t be magnetic and you won’t be wearing the suit.”

 

“He said he was dating a cellist from Portland,” said the dumbstruck Tony.

 

Still holding his husband’s hand, Phil smiled warmly, something that almost stopped Tony’s heart. He could do that? “We met in Portland and I wasn’t going to say archer. Besides, we had a date to the symphony that weekend so it was on my mind.”

 

Tony frowned as the simplest thing of all dawned on him. “Everyone knew but me. Why?”

 

Clint grinned again, “Like you so often say after trolling, let me sing you the song of my people. I think this makes us even for the Prank War.”


End file.
